Pune-based Child Psychiatrist Dr Bhooshan Shukla notes that the share of appointments by board exams students jumps from 10% in other months to 50% during this period. (Generated using AI)
It’s board exam season in Maharashtra, and with the stress of exams comes mounting pressure on students. Pune-based child psychiatrist Dr Bhooshan Shukla, who has worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist since 1999, notes that appointments from board exam candidates rise from 10 per cent in other months to 50 per cent during this period, and he even has to set aside clinic hours for urgent cases.
The Indian Express spoke to Dr Shukla about how parents, teachers, and children can take better care of students’ mental health during the exam season.
Q: What should parents do to help their children’s mental health during board exams?
Dr Shukla: A lot of this depends on what relationship they have built up to this point.
If you have a relationship where you are a partner of your child in the studies, then you already have a plan of how the two of you are going to prepare and how the last days before the exams are going to be.
If your job has mainly been of, say, a supervisor, then that is what you continue to do. But by supervisor, I mean that your child has actually listened to you for the last year. So there is a plan which you supervise, and the child has agreed that you will be their supervisor, and they actually let you do that, and that has happened throughout the year.
The third version, which I believe is true for almost 80 per cent of the families, is where parents get involved every now and then and try to motivate their children in some way or the other to study, and the children are largely either ignoring the parents or getting into conflict with them. If this has been your relationship for the past year, then right now is the time to actually step back and let the child do their thing.
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Because you have tried your thing for an entire year or two years, and it has not exactly gone according to your plans. So, at least at this point in time, you need to step back.
Q: What should be the role of teachers, schools, and tuition teachers at this time?
Dr Shukla: To tell you very honestly, schools and teachers have been doing the same thing over and over for years. They are unlikely to take advice from a child psychiatrist or any mental health professionals. Their typical stand is that we have been doing this every year; we have turned out champions. We know what we are doing.
Tuition teachers never get alerted. When do the schools get active? When either one of the children kills themselves, or at least says that they are going to end their life, that is when everybody suddenly wakes up and starts looking for a mental health expert.
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The thing is that the stress-bursting mechanism or the resilience has to be built over a period of time. Constantly giving threatening messages to children and telling them that they are going to go to hell if they don’t behave, that doesn’t really generate that environment.
So, in this last month, I think the simple job the teachers and even parents have is quite similar, which is to encourage children. Say, “Yes, you can do it. Go ahead, you will be fine”.
Q: What can the students themselves do to keep their mental health safe?
Dr Shukla: It’s very contrarian advice to what their teachers and their parents are going to tell them. But I give this advice from two standpoints: one as a mental health doctor and second as someone who has consistently aced these exams:
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You must sleep for seven to eight hours every day. Sleep is absolutely golden.
You have to have 45 minutes to one hour of exercise or play every day, even on the evening before the exam. That’s the greatest stress buster you can ever have. You physically sweat it out, and you are fine.
If you are into some kind of performing art like music, dancing, whatever, you need to do that every day. Something that uses totally different circuits of your brain than those you use for studying.
You have to eat less. You don’t have to starve yourself, but stay off sugars, stay away from chocolate. Have multiple but small meals instead of those big chunky meals twice in the day. That keeps you sharp.
Hydration is very important. People forget to drink water. I might sound like a grandmother, but it boils down to these small things.
Soham Shah is a Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Pune. A journalism graduate with a background in fact-checking, he brings a meticulous and research-oriented approach to his current reporting.
Professional Background
Role: Correspondent coverig education and city affairs in Pune.
Specialization: His primary beat is education, but he also maintains a strong focus on civic issues, public health, human rights, and state politics.
Key Strength: Soham focuses on data-driven reporting on school and college education, government reports, and public infrastructure.
Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025)
His late 2025 work highlights a transition from education-centric reporting to hard-hitting investigative and human-rights stories:
1. Investigations & Governance
"Express Impact: Mother's name now a must to download birth certificate from PMC site" (Dec 20, 2025): Reporting on a significant policy change by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) following his earlier reports on gender inclusivity in administrative documents.
"44-Acre Mahar Land Controversy: In June, Pune official sought land eviction at Pawar son firm behest" (Nov 9, 2025): An investigative piece on real estate irregularities involving high-profile political families.
2. Education & Campus Life
Faculty crisis at SPPU hits research, admin work: 62% of govt-sanctioned posts vacant, over 75% in many depts (Sept 12, 2025): An investigative piece on professor vacancies at Savitribai Phule Pune University.
"Maharashtra’s controversial third language policy: Why National Curriculum Framework recommends a third language from Class 6" (July 2): This detailed piece unpacks reasons behind why the state's move to introduce a third language from class 1 was controversial.
"Decline in number of schools, teachers in Maharashtra but student enrolment up: Report" (Jan 2025): Analyzing discrepancies in the state's education data despite rising student numbers.
3. Human Rights & Social Issues
"Aanchal Mamidawar was brave after her family killed her boyfriend" (Dec 17, 2025): A deeply personal and hard-hitting opinion piece/column on the "crime of love" and honor killings in modern India.
"'People disrespect the disabled': Meet the man who has become face of racist attacks on Indians" (Nov 29, 2025): A profile of a Pune resident with severe physical deformities who became the target of global online harassment, highlighting issues of disability and cyber-bullying.
Signature Style
Soham is known for his civil-liberties lens. His reporting frequently champions the rights of the marginalized—whether it's students fighting for campus democracy, victims of regressive social practices, or residents struggling with crumbling urban infrastructure (as seen in his "Breathless Pune" contributions). He is adept at linking hyper-local Pune issues to larger national conversations about law and liberty.
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